Forever to touch you
by smaragdbird
Summary: Post-ep for two aliens in a spaceship Hodges/zack slash very fluffy


Discaimer: I own nothing. This is just for fun

Jack walked back into the lab. Booth had taken Brennan home but he knew that Zack would still be here. He had wanted to go home too, but he wouldn't go home without Zack, not tonight, not ever again.

'You should go home and sleep. I can take a cab.' Zack said as soon as Jack walked through the laboratory door, without looking at him.

'I'm not tired.' Jack answered and it was the truth, well some sort of truth. He hadn't taken all of the pain meds since he hadn't wanted to sleep without Zack at his side and therefore the pain in his leg kept him wide awake.

'You're hurt, you've been buried alive, so you need to go home and sleep. I on the other hand am perfectly fine and can do my work.'

'Come one, Zack, look at me.'

Zack turned almost unwillingly from his workplace to face Jack, who saw now what the other had tried to hide from him: red rimmed eyes, wet lashes, purple spots on his cheeks. Zack had been crying not too long ago.

'Hey.' Jack said softly and took Zack's face in his hands.

'Hey, I'm here. I'm okay.'

'I know.' Zack choked: 'I know that and I'm being irrational but I was afraid that you would die. We've got the SMS and then your time ran out and Booth yelled at me because he thought that I'd given you up.'

Jack wiped a tear from Zack's lashes with his thump and leaned his forehead against Zack's.

'I think we should both go home. Don't you think so?' he whispered against the bridge of Zack's nose.

The other man nodded silently.

There's a proverb that things don't look so scary in the morning light as they do in the night. When Jack woke up the next day (the whole team had gotten the next days off because of the 'unusual circumstances') with a snoring Zack at his side, he thought that said proverb was damn right. Sun light filtered through the curtains that were drawn over the open window and painted patterns with the shade of the curtains on the floor.

It was a perfect morning after the nightmares that had haunted his dreams last night, but every time he's woken up, there had been Zack, unsure and a little scared Zack, granted, but still Zack.

But his leg demanded attention. With a sigh, Jack rolled away from Zack to get the pills and the water from the nightstand, but Zack's hand clutched his boxer shorts and he murmured: Don't go. It's too early.'

Jack grinned, amused and touched at the same time.

'I'm not going anywhere.' He promised and Zack's hand relaxed a bit so he could get his meds.

He laid back down on the bed after he'd taken them and Zack snuggled against his chest. With his eyes still closed he said:

'My parents called the day before yesterday.'

'Hm?'

'They asked whether we wanted to come over for Christmas.'

'That's in…Wait. Did you said they asked whether 'we' would like to come?'

'Yes, we.'

'When did you tell them about us?' Jack was surprised. He hadn't thought that Zack had told his family about them, considering how hard it was to get Zack to hold hands in public. Jack had always thought that Zack had some issues with his sexuality (not with being gay, more with sexuality in general).

'Oh, about five month ago, or so.' Zack answered as if it was no big deal.

'And why didn't you tell me that you told them?' When Jack looked down he could see the mischievous smile forming on Zack's face.

'It was supposed to be a surprise, because that's what couple's do, right? They surprise each other.' Now Zack opened his eyes and looked into Jack's.

'Yeah.' Jack was still flattened by this new information, hell by the mischievous grin on Zack's face. If he had known that he needed to be buried alive to see this side of his partner, then he would have done it months ago (just without the being-hit-by-a-car-part).

'So, you want to spent this Christmas in Michigan? We could have snowball fights with my brother's and sister's or build snowmen and my mother is a great cook.'

Jack flipped them around, so that Zack was now lying underneath him.

'Did I ever say no to you?'

Zack closed his eyes and began to murmur as if he was seriously searching his memory. Jack nudged him in the stomach.

'Hey, that was a rhetorical question!'

Zack giggled and rolled them back around. For someone so lanky and thin, he had a considerable strength.

'You shouldn't move your leg that much. The stitches could open.' He scolded Jack but didn't look too stern, just concerned and affectionate. Jack tilted his head upwards and kissed him.

Christmas cam sooner than Jack had thought and suddenly he was following Zack's directions and tried to find a certain house in a mass of houses and snow. Normally, because he didn't really trust Zack with a map, he would have asked someone, but there was no one on the street.

'There is it.' Zack pointed at a very decorated house, which seemed only to be built out of lamps.

Jack parked the car not far away and then helped Zack with their baggage. They had more presents for Zack's family than clothes but who cared? As long as Zack was happy with only two pullovers why shouldn't he, too?

The door opened for them and warm, yellow light spilled onto the snow.

'Zack! Finally! We already feared that came up.' Zack's mother said and first took her son by the shoulders to examine him.

'You look better, than last year. I suppose I have to thank you for that?' She turned to Jack.

'I did nothing that another friend wouldn't have done, ma'am.' He said politely, but she shook his head.

'Zack complained to me that you're dragging him home from work too often for his liking but I think it's better for him. Zack, why don't you do in the living room, there are other people who haven't seen or heard you since last year.' Zack shot his mother a last look over his shoulder before he left the hallway.

'So, you're Jack Hodgins.' She examined him sharper than she had done with Zack and Jack suddenly wondered if his mother had ever had this talk with one of his girl- or boyfriends.

'I am.'

'If you hurt him, you'll regret it.'

'I won't.'

'Good.' She gave him a last look, but then smiled again: 'Come on, Jack. Everyone's curious about the man Zack has picked out among all men.'

So it cam that Jack spent this year's Christmas not over some poor, dead bastard but listening to childhood stories that Zack's four sister's and three brother's were more than happy to share while Zack stood next to him, with his hand in Jack's and blushed in all possible shades of red, pink and purple. That night Jack listened to Zack snoring in his sleep and thought that he would gladly jump in front of the next car and be buried alive again if it only meant that he could have this again and again.


End file.
